2.7 THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN SUPPORTING LEARNERS DOING
collaboration, facilitates learner reflection, provides explicit instruction on skills, and helps motivate learners. These five strategies will now be described.
2.7.1 Asking questions
A survey of the literature on the facilitative role of the teacher in a classroom where investigations are taking place provides further elaboration of what the teacher can do in such an environment. In facilitating the learners' progress in an open investigation, the teacher can use strategies to help focus their attention on the stages of the investigation and thereby structure their work. In providing this structure the teacher helps the learners
"without telling them what to do" (Monk & Dillon, 1995, p. 82).
Teacher questioning can play a pivotal role in helping learners obtain a sense of structure and direction in the investigation. According to Mines (1995), "the art of skilful
questioning appears to be crucial to achieve the balance between giving students suitable guidance and leaving sufficient scope for then to think independently" (p. 14). Questioning if used effectively can provide a bridge towards greater learner autonomy. This questioning allows the teacher to create specific "scaffolding" for the learner whereby the unknown or unfamiliar is controlled by the teacher until such time as the learner can assume this control (Bradbury, 2000, p. 57).
Llewellyn (2002) describes four types of questions which are commonly asked by teachers in supporting learners who are doing investigations. These are clarifying, focusing, probing and prompting questions. Clarifying questions require learners to make their thoughts and understanding more explicit. Teachers often ask clarifying questions by asking "What do you mean by that ? or Can you be more specific about that ?" Focusing questions are asked when learners provide vague or generalized responses. Focusing questions require learners to provide more specific responses. Teachers often pose focusing questions by asking "Can you give me an example of that ?" Probing questions require learners to explain. justify or expand upon their original response to a question. They are aimed at expanding a learner's original response to a question. Teachers often pose probing questions by asking, for example, "What are you thinking about when you say that ? or What do you think you should do next ?" Prompting questions require learners to provide answers that are guided by questions that are asked by the teacher. These prompting questions often contain hints
or clues to guide the learner to answer correctly. Sometimes, the teacher will use a prompting question as a follow-up question when a learner cannot answer an original query correctly. Some examples of prompting questions are "Don't you think you should try it again ? or Have you thought about increasing the angle of the ramp ?" (Llewellyn, 2002, p. 134).
In planning the investigation, such questions can appear in the form of a thinking schedule or prompt sheet. These prompt questions focus the learners on the stages of the
investigation. The learner responses to the prompt sheet can also inform the teacher about the progress the learners are making in the investigation (Monk & Dillon, 1995). Harlen (2001) illustrates how a prompt sheet can be used by the teacher in facilitating the learners' thought process in the planning stage of investigation. The investigation she uses to
illustrate this is a fair test to decide the effect of the strength of a dye on colour. A prompt sheet by Harlen which engages the learner in the steps of the planning process is shown in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2 Prompt sheet for the planning stage of an investigation (Harlen, 2001) Investigable question What happens to the colour if we change the
strength of the dye ?
The amount of dye dissolved.
The amount of water, the temperature, the type of material, the time of soaking, and any others that might be thought likely to make a
difference.
The colour.
If there is a difference, it will be possible to say what change resulted in a deeper or paler colour. If not, the answer will be that changing the strength made no difference in the
investigation.
What should be changed in the investigation ?
(the independent variable) What should be kept the same ? (the controlled variable)
What kind of effect should be observed ? (the dependent variable)
How will the result be used to answer the question ?
Note: From "Primary science taking the plunge" by W. Harlen, (p. 71), 2001, Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
As the teacher circulates around the class during the investigation, the responses to the prompt sheet below provides a focus for discussion between the teacher and the learners. It enables the teacher at a glance to know what the learners are setting out to do, to ensure that the method is safe and to ensure that the apparatus is available. Summerfield (1995) observes that these supports seemed to offer learners a simple cognitive scaffolding to reach the various parts of the investigation.
For learners who are not acquainted with or have limited experience of a 'fair test', the teacher may have to play an overt role in ensuring that they have a good grasp of the notion of a variable. The teacher may give them prompt sheets in the form of proformas of
incomplete two-column tables which would ask them to record the nature and/or value of the independent variable and the value of the dependent variable. Setting up an experiment requires explicit definition of the variable or variables which form the focus of the
investigation and of other variables which need to be controlled (Brook, Driver &
Johnston, 1989). Such a table gives structure to planning an investigation by indicating which variable is to be changed, which is to be measured, and how many measurements are to be made (Phipps, 1996).
Questioning, apart from providing structure and direction in the investigation. may also be used by the teacher to help learners who encounter difficulties while conducting the investigation. In facilitating the learners' progress, the teacher should seldom tell but often question. According to Sund and Trowbridge (1973), "The teacher must switch from the classical concepts of telling to listening and questioning and being open to the students' thought." (p. 111). After perceiving the learner's difficulty, the teacher has to formulate a question which will be a challenge yet give guidance to the learner. The teacher does this by focusing on some aspect of the task that the learners did not attend to, or helps them to integrate skills through interactive and situated feedback (Roth, 1995).
In asking questions, the teacher should provide adequate time for reflection and analysis.
Rowe's (1974) research in this area has identified two kinds of wait time: (a) wait time l is the time after the teacher asks a question and before anyone speaks again; (b) wait time 2 is the time after a pupil speaks before anyone else speaks. Rowe found that teachers typically wait less than one second for learners to answer a question. This doesn't give learners time to form an answer unless it is only something from memory, that is, something that
requires no thinking. Some teachers also answer their own questions before learners have time to respond to them (Howe, 2002). For teachers to support and guide learners doing investigations, they should attempt to increase their wait-time tolerance so that learners have more time to think about their responses.
2.7.2 Facilitating collaboration
Learning takes place more effectively in an investigative environment if the teacher facilitates collaboration amongst learners (Hodson, 1998). When learners are faced with challenging tasks learners can feel insecure because they are threatened by the risk of failure. Hodson points out that cooperative learning contributes to self-esteem by providing an emotionally secure social environment. In this environment learners feel more
comfortable to ask questions, try new things, and support each other. According to Hodson, working together can also help learners to "identify and correct misconceptions, inappropriate inquiry strategies and poor learning methods" (p. 99). The teacher must ensure that each learner is playing an active role in the activities of the group. The structure of groupwork lends itself to the need for all learners to take responsibility for their roles in the investigation. Individuals should not be allowed to let others do all the work as learners work together as a community of learners. The teacher should ensure that learners reflect and build on each other's ideas, and have the freedom to challenge arguments underlying different points of view (Layman, Ochoa, Heikkinen Orrill, 1996). The teacher should also facilitates discussion between groups. After the investigations are completed, "the teacher moderates the discussion as groups of students share and critique each other's findings" (Layman, et al., p. 39).
2.7.3 Facilitating reflection
After the learners have conducted the investigation the teacher may direct them to reflect upon what they have done. Harlen (2001) suggests that the teacher may ask questions such as "How did you decide what masses to add to the truck ?; What results did you get with each one ?; How did you use the results to decide whether the mass added to the truck made any difference ?; Do you think that you'd find the same results if you added a really big mass to the truck ?" (p. 81). Often these kinds of questions help the learners to realize the alternative course of action they could have taken and the improvements that they
could have made. The discussion would thereby lead the learners to identify the
weaknesses in what they did. These questions should be open, with no critical implications.
When the teacher gives an opinion, it should be "part of the general pooling of ideas, not a judgement on the success of the work" (p. 81). The principal aim should be to develop in
learners the habit of self-reflection and self-criticism.
In this post-lab, the teacher is advised to facilitate discussion so that the results of the investigation are meaningful to them. The value of investigations for helping learners' understanding may be lost if they stop at the point of arriving at results. According to Howe (2002), "An important part — maybe the most important of an inquiry lesson is discussion of what the data mean. An inquiry is not complete without this phase where
"hands-on" becomes "minds-on" (p. 128). The discussion should involve returning to the initial question or the original purpose of the investigation and considering the results in relation to it, as well as reviewing the way the investigation was carried out. Harlen (2001) suggests that the teacher should pose questions such as, "Has the question been answered or the problem solved? What has been learned that helps develop an understanding of the subject of the investigation?" (p. 77). The teacher thereby helps them make a connection between the result of the investigation and the concept, principle or law being addressed by the investigation. The teacher can achieve this by encouraging learners to form tentative explanation for their observations.
2.7.4 Teaching skills
If learners are lacking in investigation skills they may not be in a position to do an investigation on their own. Roth (1995) suggests that in such a case, the teacher "designs the tasks in such a way that students can practice their knowledge and skills in settings which are challenging but at a complexity appropriate to the students' current abilities" (p.
243). These investigative skills and techniques can be taught almost as rules of thumb by means of a prescriptive activity (Newton, 2002). Wellington (2000) suggests that "the pupils can be taught how to read a range of measuring instruments, how to set up data- logging equipment, how to record results manually, and how to set up certain common types of apparatus, such as for distillation" (p. 162). Apart from recording numerical (quantitative) data, learners also need teacher support in recording descriptive (qualitative) data (Phipps, 1996). Such a skill is necessary especially in chemistry investigations where
learners may be required to describe their observations of any changes which take place during a chemical reaction. Empirical evidence in support of the need for the teacher to provide explicit instruction in skills, is presented from a study by Toh, Boo and Yeo (1997) with thirteen-year-old learners who were explicitly taught the strategies in connection with planning, measurement, procedural and communication stages of open-ended laboratory tasks. The study concluded that learners who did receive explicit instruction in these skills found to be better prepared to deal with such tasks than those who had no instruction in such skills. Depending on the learners' level of expertise, the teacher may need to model the skills he would like the learners to learn. In such a case the teacher should demonstrate to learners how to use new tools or materials, or help learners design and carry out skills of recording, documenting, and drawing conclusions (Ash & Kluger-Bell, 1999).
2.7.5 Motivating learners
Finally, in providing support for learners doing scientific investigations, the role of the teacher as a motivator should not be underestimated. It is important for a teacher to show his or her students that there is some importance to learning the material and that it can be engaging. A study by Brophy, Rashid, Rohrkemper and Goldberger (1983) shows a higher quality of student task engagement can be expected when students are working on tasks that they enjoy or believe to be interesting or worthwhile than when they are working on tasks that they dislike or believe to be boring or pointless.